Soooooooooooo. It’s almost the end of August, and no update from my part here. What a busy summer it had been!

Started a new job in June, and got another episode of zona in the last two weeks (this one pretty painful, a first).

Still running like a chicken without a head around, running after my time and the daughter.

On the social life front, thought, it’s been pretty quiet: a couple of nights out with friends, but since I started my new job, I was pretty much too tired to go out a lot. It was mostly a “cocooning” summer at home.

And now, what’s next this fall for me? A first: no university, no back-to-school fever for me! I know, some of my friends have bets going on, on when I’ll be back in school (seems like I can’t stop loving school), but seriously, I think I’m done for at least 5 years: just enough time for the “study itch” becomes too intense for me

Otherwise, I’ll also be starting a new personal project, related to my field of work. More info on that later this fall

There is no place with more personal debt and heavier patterns of obligation than the Land of the Free. We are free to try to get expensive degrees to get jobs that barely exist, we are free to spend most of our lives paying student loans, we are free to lose everything we may have gained the moment we get sick. Along the way we can buy more things and get into more housing debt than almost anyone in the world, making our freedom one of consumption — consuming and being consumed by the systems we are born to.

We are free to vote in gerrymandered districts, and free to vote for two federal parties that are largely identical. We are free to vote on machines and systems that it is often illegal to audit for security purposes. We are all free to talk at once, and listen to no one at all. We are free, ever free, to chase as many dollars as we can, all the way to Hell.